


Anatomy of the Terrible

by HostisHumaniGeneris



Series: Smutswap 2018 Fills [1]
Category: Cthulhu Mythos - H. P. Lovecraft
Genre: Animal Death, Art, F/M, Ghoul Sex, Ghouls, Monster Girl, Plot What Plot/Porn Without Plot, Sex with Monsters, Submissive Aggressor
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-07
Updated: 2018-03-07
Packaged: 2019-03-28 03:03:58
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,050
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13894881
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/HostisHumaniGeneris/pseuds/HostisHumaniGeneris
Summary: She was his best model.  Most of the other Ghouls would sit still for maybe one photograph.  But she would sit for an actual portrait.  Pickman liked to think she was as fascinated by him as he was of her.And he was correct.





	Anatomy of the Terrible

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Silex](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Silex/gifts).



> Written for Smutswap 2018, in response to a request for fic examining just what the ghouls got out of being Pickman's model.

Richard Upton PIckman plodded through the streets, wrapped bundle under his arm.  He glanced at his watch and scowled, he was running late.  He doubled his pace down the dilapidated alleyways until he found the familiar door of his rented studio.  He passed through rooms of painted canvases, hearing something scratch and scuttle below him.

She was downstairs by the well, staring up at him as he got down the stairs.  She stood up to her full height, and he had to look up to maintain eye contact. “Late.”

Most ghouls didn’t say much, at least, not in English.  They could make quite a racket in their natural vocalizations.  She was more loquacious than most of her kind, and even then sometimes it was hard dragging more than monosyllables out of her.  She was sharp as a tack though, it would be folly to imagine their limited speech for limited intellect.  They taught him a lot. 

“I apologize, my dear.”  A few weeks ago, he was convinced that his use of ‘dear’ was an affectation, something he addressed all his models by. Time had passed, and he wasn't quite so sure.  He held up the bundle.  “I merely had difficulty getting a this—a token of my appreciation.”

She was his best model.  Maybe not the most fearsome of the ghouls beneath Boston, but she was easily the most enthusiastic of her kind to help him.  Most were too impatient to sit for much longer than the time it took to take a photograph; they’d rather be digging.  They were always digging. They would come and he would photograph him, and they would take whatever token of appreciation he had, and then leave. The eldest ghouls--for what else could they be but the eldest with their scarred, weathered hides--would stay longer, and would tell him of such fantastic lore, but they refused to let him draw or photograph them.   But she liked to sit.  She seemed as fascinated by the idea of an artist that was interested in ghouls, just as he sought them out to learn.  A link to the world of her prey.  She was easily the most congenial model of the lot; willing to stand still until she was lit just right, hold position in any number of wild, feral pose attentively. 

She also took an interest in the end result, beyond the raucous amusement that her brethren had upon seeing his display of their savage greatness. She'd hoot and holler just as much as they would, but she would also carefully study the canvasses and note where she fit in, how she'd often have a central role. She'd let him talk her ear off about his processes and what he saw when he looked at them. He was never without sincere praise for her; both her patience in helping him, and how she cast a striking figure on canvas.

She was his best model, and the one ghoul as interested in him as he was in them. So he gave her gifts.  She greedily snatched the bundle out of his hands and unwrapped it.  He’d wrung the dog’s neck scarcely an hour ago.  Boston had countless strays, which presented an easy gift for her.  Without fanfare, she opened her jaws wide, wider than he would’ve thought possible had he not seen it before and began eating.

He himself had tried it a few weeks ago.  Cooked, he couldn’t quite convince himself to try it raw like they did.  But he tried it anyways; it was a way to try to emulate him.  He might work up to raw one of these days.  He kept his eyes on her, teeth rending; he’d often used a dog or cat as a stand-in for when he wanted to paint her, or one of her brethren, feasting on a human.  One of the older ones had dropped a not so subtle hint as to how grateful they’d be, and how inspiring it would be for him, if he was to gift them like that, although accommodating that request would be substantially more difficult.

He was aware some of the glances the ghouls, not her, but some of her brethren, shot at him when they thought he wasn’t noticing. They found him amusing and they appreciated free food, but some of them hungry for more than vermin and strays.  That’s why he always had a revolver on him when he met for a session with one of them.

She worked her teeth through the dog’s midsection, sharp, yellowed teeth glittering red.  After a few bites, after she hollowed it out, she dropped the remnant down the well, where it landed and then scuttling broke out.  She always shared with her family.

That accomplished, they walked there way to the corner of the basement where she’d stand or sit in the light of an acetylene lamp.  He’d painted her a dozen times over; she was his favorite.   She would hunch over holding the broken form of a cat, or crouch on all fours with one claw raised, or throw her entire body back in a silent howl to the ceiling, and he would sketch, capturing every minute detail that he could, and then cover the sketch in the oils.  She was one of the many who attacked an overturned subway car in his fevered imagination.  She was reaching up from beneath the bed of a puritan child, the wide-eyed terror in the babe’s face apparent.  She sat on a gravestone, licking a bloodied skull held in long talons.

And when he’d gone through a dozen ideas of his own, she let him know that had ideas she’d like to share with Pickman.  About what to paint, how she should pose.  If any other model of his would have suggested it, he would’ve condescendingly asked if they would like to try painting it as well.  The model’s pose was an artistic choice, and who was the artist?  None of the other ghouls cared enough about his art to make such a suggestion, and human models, before he had grown bored of them, accepted he was the expert.

But she was his best model, and she did not disappoint.  It wasn’t expected; he thought she would snarl, scramble, bay at the ceiling, affect a roar or a pounce.  Instead, she dropped to the floor and lay belly up, propping herself on an elbow, her other hand placed between her legs, covering her genitalia.  She stared at a spot on the ceiling, attempting to give an indifferent air.  He almost had to laugh at the absurdity of it all.  She featured into some of the best visions of damnation he had painted.  And there she was, reclining like a _Venus_ of Titian, Manet’s _Olympia, La Maja Desnuda_ by de Goya, Fortuny’s _Odalisque_ , or the countless other variations of a beautiful nude. 

The reclining nude was a classic pose.  Generic.  Something that great masters had perfected long before he was born, and of which nothing new could be made, even by him.  Except… none of them had a model quite like he did.  Titian, Ingres, de Goya, nobody he could think of had ever had a chance like he had.  As far as he knew, he was the only artist ever to try, or the only one whom the ghouls obliged rather than devoured.  As such… something old could be made new.  He’d done a few homages to de Goya’s _Saturn_ after all, he could try to see how a Ghoul would look homaging his lighter works. It was all because of her, but the painting that resulted was wonderful and terrible. The mix of her, something primeval that lurked among the tombstones at night, and classical images of beauty was potent. The picture was wholly unlike those of the old masters, and unlike those he had painted of the ghouls. He had come to paint horror, and now he was painting beauty.

He’d come to realize that it wasn’t just her sense of morbid humor, trying to mock the great painters of the past, not that he’d been averse to such a thing.  It was her attempt to drop a hint.  It struck him that maybe there was a reason why she was such a good model for him, so patient with him.  He got a wonderful model out of this.  But she was so helpful, enough that it couldn’t have just been about the stray animals he brought her. 

That thought was not upsetting to him.  Before all this, before he found his true calling, he’d done countless nude studies or portraitures as a learner and later a master. The curve of a full breast, pale skin bared to him, women looking at him wearing nothing but a forced smile—those had all ceased to be titillating to him long ago.  It had become business.  But the densely muscled Ghoul, skin stretched over her frame tight as a drum, stirred something in him.  Her chest was flat, and he could count the ribs.  Three pairs of nipples ran down from mid-torso to where her navel was.  Below that, she placed her hand to hide any further detail. She was unlike any woman he had painted before, but she was a woman. 

The thought of it was intoxicating and more than once when he was done with a sketch or putting oil to canvas, when they broke for the night, he had to awkwardly go home to release the tension that she had wrought upon him--couldn't do it in his studio, they might hear or smell something. It took up thoughts at inopportune moments, and he found himself fantasizing like he had as a teenager. Only the flawless, brainless girls who he fantasized about back then no longer held any semblance of interest to him. She did.

Still, they danced around the topic.  She moved through countless classical poses, displaying her body to him, writhing and contorting; she had obviously seen a lot of old art somewhere--she simply said in books. And as she posed, she looked at him almost like her brethren did, hungry.  Except he felt he had nothing to fear from her.  And he’d dutifully paint her, thank her, and head home to deal with the thoughts running through his head. 

Tonight, was no different, except she was apparently becoming annoyed with how oblivious the painter was. She had decided to move from classical art to pure obscenity.  Instead of standing contrapposto, facing slightly away with her leg hiding herself; or pudica, covering herself with her hands, she sat on the floor and splayed herself wide open.  It wasn’t classical or tasteful.

It was, however, intriguing.

Pickman paid attention to the smallest detail.  The way her lower canines were the most prominent of her teeth.  The way her eyes glittered in the dim light.  The scaly hand resting on her inner thigh, the thumb almost touching the dark slit between her legs. The prominent pink nub of flesh at the top of the slit. She bared all to him, and he took his time with the sketch, focusing on all the little details of her body.  He’d seen it all before, of course, she never wore clothes but when talking to him she never put herself on display, and when posing, she kept those details in shadow or covered up.  Didn’t want to distract from the main point of a piece.

The thoughts running through his head as he began adding detail to the sketch were of the sort he usually managed to reserve until he was home, alone.  He looked between the canvas and her, feeling himself stand to.  It’d be frankly embarrassing, like he was back as a teenager doing life drawings to learn, but he kept sketching.  She was trying to provoke a reaction, and he wasn’t particularly going to feel shame for her success.

He had to stop sketching when she got up and walked towards him.  She sniffed the air.  He was about to ask her what she was doing when she took a few long strides and was right over him.  He slowly set down the charcoal, but did not reach for the revolver in his pocket.  He was confident the look on her face, that _hungry_ look wasn’t quite for a meal.  She hunched her shoulders, flattened her ears, and didn’t quite look at him, clenching her muzzle shut.  Then with a rapidity he wasn’t expecting, his back was against the wall and she filled his vision.  She was breathing heavily.  She could’ve rent him limb from limb with her bare hands or torn out his throat with her teeth.  Instead, she had him pinned against the wall while she sniffed and panted. 

“Want.” He practically jumped when a massive paw planted itself over his crotch and rubbed.   She grumbled in approval as she felt that he was hard. Just from looking at her.  “Could smell it.”

He just shrugged in her grip.  She was much stronger than he was. Besides, he was looking forward to this.  He couldn’t deny that she had excited him in ways women models hadn’t in a long time.  All that was needed was one of them to make the first move.

“Like you.” She snarled, continuing to fondle him.  “Want you.”

From what he’d gathered about ghouls, her fascination with him would hardly be deviant.  Humans were a convenient food source, yes, but the ghouls found them useful for so much more.  As for him?  He’d been called a rake for some dalliances with models years ago, before his current fascinations, and if the milquetoast cowards who shunned him for his art could see what kind of scandals he had planned at the moment...

He reached blindly with his hand, never taking his eyes off her face.  He found hard skin and muscle and traced his fingers downwards.  Muscles tightened under his hand, and she tensed up when he brushed against her nipples. There was all almost imperceptible tremor in her when he reached down between her legs. The muscles in her jaw tensed up as she exhaled deeply.

She _whined_ as his fingers glided over her clit, tracing a slow circle over the nub.  While he continued running the thumb of his right against the clit, he ran his middle finger back and forth against the length of her labia.  She was practically _gushing_ with even a light touch.   The two hands on his shoulders tightened their grip hard enough to make him wince while she continued making plaintive noises with his ministrations.    When she slid his middle and ring finger _inside_ , she loosened her grip, tensed, and yelped through clenched jaws.

“You’re rather sensitive” He noted, making her quiver around his hand.  She was slick, wet, trembling, but wasn’t warm against his fingers.  She mewled and groaned as he worked her over, pushing down on his shoulders hard enough to make him drop to his knees.   She tried to move her hips in time with his motions, tightening and loosening her grip on him as he stared up at her. He leaned forward, and she yelped when her tongue reached her, standing up on her clawed toes. 

Her voice dropped back down to a growl when he withdrew his hand.  Her head snapped down to him, eyes wide.  He pushed off the ground, getting to his feet and began unbuttoning his shirt.  She got the message and turned and walked a few steps away from him.  His eyes ran over her back, her taut skin highlighting the muscles active with every step she took away from him, the prominent notches of her spine.  He hadn’t really noticed it before, being focused on her laying still, but there was something quite feminine about how her hips swayed with her gait. 

She stopped and dropped to all fours, looking over her shoulder expectantly.  It would not do to keep her waiting.  He removed the remnants of his shirt, kicked off his shoes, and then stepped out of his trousers.  She looked hungrily at him as he walked over to her.  He’d have to remember that expression for a future work.

He ran a hand down her back, tracing her backbone between her shoulder blades down to her tail, which was raised perpendicular to the ground.  Muscles he’d sketched and painted a dozen times tensed as he felt them.  She was shivering at his touch; as aggressive had she been at the start she had become putty in his hands.  This was an experience few, if any, men could attest to having, such power and effect over something as primeval as his model.  He continued, lightly touching her swollen sex.  She shuddered. 

It was the devil that made him stop fingering her, pull his hand back, and bring his open palm down on her rump.  The sound almost echoed in the confines of the basement, and his palm stung. Her only reaction was to turn her head and glare over her shoulder.  The look in her eyes was one of annoyance.

“Stop teasing!” She growled and Pickman jumped.  It struck him that perhaps she had enough foreplay.

He lined up the head of his cock against her vagina.  He gripped her hips, feeling her muscles tense up in anticipation.  She yelped when he entered her; she was quite tight and he wasn’t sure it was quite comfortable for her.  He himself gasped, she felt cold.  They were still for a moment before she leaned forward and then back.  She repeated this a few times before Pickman himself started thrusting. 

Flesh and hide slapped together as they screwed.  She had stopped her movements when he began, except hunching her shoulders and barking and moaning with every thrust.  He was right, she was quite sensitive apparently.  After one particularly forceful thrust, her arms buckled and her front dropped low against the ground.  He leaned forward, hooking his arms around her body as he continued to drive in, feeling her abdominal muscles tense up as he gripped her.  His thrusts were slower but more forceful, and by now her torso and lower jaw were against the ground, her taloned hands carving parallel scratches into the cellar floor.

He was fucking her into the ground. 

This was surreal and unbelievable, even for him.  It wasn’t just that this living nightmare felt wonderful around him, though she did.  It was that something as ancient and powerful as she was, who had been so insistent when they started was laying on her belly, mewling as he plowed into her.

She almost bucked him off and shrieked, a warbling ululation that left Pickman’s ears ringing, and she tightened around him.  Not enough to be painful, however, he could feel some muscles in her body rippling as every other fiber of her being seemed to have gone slack from that final effort.

After the momentary pause her forceful wail caused, he planted his hands on her shoulders again, gripping her hard enough to turn his knuckles white.  His rhythm was random and erratic now as he rushed to join her on the other side while she laid limp on the ground breathing heavily.  He didn’t even try to stave off his orgasm.  He just gripped her tight and kept thrusting as he came.  Once he was completely spent, he pitched forward on top of her, exhausted.

Just as bonelessly as she had been laying, he was draped on top of her.  Her ears twitched when he exhaled against the back of her neck, a tiny display that amused him.  They held position for a moment, before she shifted to the side, sending Pickman rolling off of her.  He laid next to her, eyes on the ceiling, panting like a wild animal.  She was crumpled on her belly, eyes unfocused and ahead of her.  When he reached out and put a hand on her flank, however, she snapped her attention back to him and shakily got back up on all fours. 

She crawled over his midsection, opened her mouth wide, and _gently_ closed it around his now-soft cock.  He let out an inarticulate grumble at her tongue coiled around and ran alongside it.   He just laid there while she cleaned him off, waiting until she finished and rested her head on his belly.  She was heavy.  “You know, you interrupted me before I could finish the sketch.”

She just looked at him out the corner of her eye, resting a massive paw on his thigh.  A claw scraped against his inner thigh, not enough to cut.  He rested his hand on the back of her neck; an act that took a surprising amount of effort.  He was _drained_.

“I must insist you sit for me again tomorrow.  So we can… finish the sketch.” Pickman said, earning a short, barking laugh from her.

“Tomorrow.” She agreed.

* * *

After the previous night, Pickman felt he needed to show his appreciation for his model.  A stray animal would hardly do to commemorate such an event, she needed something more substantial.  A vagrant near his studio would do most nicely.  No one would miss just one.  It wouldn’t be a murder.  They would’ve been well on their way to dying of drink.

Then, serendipity intervened.  As he surveyed the street, looking for a homeless desperate enough to be lured to the basement, he saw someone else, incongruently well-dressed for the largely lower class North End of Boston.  Pickman crossed the street without looking, taking silent steps as he drew nearer and nearer.

“Doctor Reid?” The half-jump Reid gave when Pickman said his name was viscerally satisfying. 

“Richard?  What are you doing…” The old man gasped, before going silent.  PIckman studied him closely, noting the patch of white on his hand where a wedding ring should have been.  The North End of Boston was no place for a respected man such as Doctor Reid to be, unless he had some reason for being here.

 “I’m sorry, I did not mean to startle you, my dear fellow…” Pickman smiled genially.  They had not parted amicably.  Pickman thought Reid was a spineless fool, Reid thought Pickman was not quite human any more.  Maybe he was right.  “I was merely heading towards a studio I rent here.”

“You have a studio here?” Reid said, apparently unsure if he should be shocked at finding him here or not.  On the one hand, Pickman had means to paint elsewhere; he wasn’t hard up for cash, one of the reasons he hadn’t needed to kowtow to the milquetoast tastes of people like Reid.  On the other, while Reid was too respectable for this part of town, he had no respect for Pickman; he probably thought Pickman belonged in a place like this. He had no idea how right he was.

“Of course, man.  These buildings… some of them date back to the city’s founding.” Pickman smiled. Maybe she would want to share it with him. That was a step to emulate them he had never taken--cannibalism. But now...   “I find the old places of Boston to be very inspirational.  And the old things. The city has such history.”

For whatever differences they had, Pickman and Reid shared one common love in the history of the city.  It was something that could be used.  Reid made make an excuse and leave, but Pickman placed a hand on the man’s shoulder and insisted that he had to show him the studio at least.  The art would definitely not be up Reid’s alley, given the man’s reaction to his earlier paintings.  However, these old North End homes, some dating back centuries, were quite awe-inspiring.  The proper niceties were used and Pickman apologized for his earlier behavior without any implication of bitterness.  Although it blanched him, he said he was contrite over how… excessive his work had become.

That was apparently enough to at least pique Reid’s curiosity.  Together they went down dingy alleys with broken windows, towards the cellar where Pickman did his best work.  Reid had been one of the Art Club members who ostracized him, who vilified him.  Pickman owed him for that. 

Besides, a respected art critic would be a fitting gift for his best model.

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks to Silex for requesting this; I was familiar with Pickman's Model, but the request made me reread it, along with a few other mythos stories. Also, dear readers, you have no idea how difficult it was, after reading, and rereading Lovecraft, to avoid describing the indescribable non-Euclidean angles that Pickman had to venture through upon entry into the Stygian abyss betwixt the daemoniac labia of the pit-spawned fiend.


End file.
